No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

In studying the knee-jerk Lombard (I) found in one subject that whatever increased or decreased the activity of the central nervous system as a whole increased or diminished the activity of this reflex. Howell (2) states that this general fact is supported, especially as regards mental activity-such, for instance, as the condition of the nervous center controlling the bladder.In view of the paucity of quantitative data on this subject it was decided to measure the knee-jerk under active and passive conditions of highly socialized forms of peripheral stimulation. We did not feel free to hazard a definition of what psychologists have generally agreed to include under the term 'attention' or 'mental activity' but preferred to assign to the subject a problem which we felt reasonably sure would release the type of response which most psychologists would agree required 'attention' or was performed under 'attentive attitudes.' The terms passive and active which we have chosen in place of non-attentive and attentive are not meant to carry theoretical implications as to their psychological character beyond those which the reader himself wishes to interpret from the nature of the problems that were assigned to the subjects. Data were collected from seven normal sl,lbjects in good health, four of whom were well trained in knee-jerk experi-M ~I

No abstract